To the editor:

There seems to be no solution to the ongoing problem with vacation rentals in our town. I have spent most of the afternoons inside my house with curtains closed and the TV on high volume to relax from the extreme turbulence I can hear from a nearby vacation rental home. I complained to the person who manages the property and here is the response I received:

“You should be glad Gunnar, for what would Cape Coral be without these rental homes? Nothing!”

After that I realized that any future discussion is useless. The company has lots of homes in super locations, including the Yacht Club area. There must be numerous neighbors in the same situation as I am. Evidently the City cannot do anything as long as it’s quiet after 11 p.m. All day long they can live like in a resort and party all day long. We residents who live here because of the climate and like to be outside are now forced to spend the days inside and can open up and move out after 11 p.m. What a change, partly because of actions from our governor. What a change!

We got the suggestion to sell and move to a more quiet area. Yeah, sure, but wherever you might live in an attractive location in this town, there can be a vacation rental next door and a huge Jacuzzi 8 feet from your border line. Vacation rentals are a lucrative business and you can be chased from lot to lot because of investors looking for huge returns on their money. I had a foreign investor asking me if I could find him 25 turnkey homes in Cape Coral last fall.

City Hall officials want to get industries and job opportunities to land in the Cape, but two major concerns for industry are housing and infrastructure. As of now Cape Coral has none of the above. Why? Well, a vacation rental is a very profitable business and foreign investors pick up all well-located houses and turn them into hotels and workers don’t have a chance to keep up. These short-term guests normally go to the beaches in the morning and return in the afternoon causing lots of traffic blocking the bridges. Both housing and infrastructure are null and void in Cape Coral.

So, officials in City Hall, do something before our city is a new Miami Beach. These mini-hotels should not be allowed in a residential zoned area.

Gunnar Tulin

Cape Coral